Investigation and Optimization of Pirani Vacuum Gauges With Monocrystal Silicon Heaters and Heat Sinks

This paper presents micro-Pirani vacuum gauges using low-resistivity monocrystal silicon for the heaters and the heat sinks. We designed a new Pirani gauge with an embedded Wheatstone bridge made by thick-silicon resistors that allows an improvement in resolution and sensitivity. With the optimized...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of microelectromechanical systems Vol. 26; no. 3; pp. 601 - 608
Main Authors Zhang, Le-Min, Jiao, Bin-Bin, Yun, Shi-Chang, Kong, Yan-Mei, Chen, Da-Peng
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York IEEE 01.06.2017
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Bonding
Bridge circuits
Coefficients
Electrical resistivity
Eutectic temperature
Heat sinks
Holes
Measuring instruments
Micromechanical devices
Optimization
Pirani gauge
post-complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) microelectromechanical systems (MEMs) process
Resistance
Resistors
Sensitivity
Silicon
Temperature measurement
thermal conductance
Thermal conductivity
Vacuum gages
vacuum measurement
wafer-level package
Wheatstone bridge structure
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Summary:This paper presents micro-Pirani vacuum gauges using low-resistivity monocrystal silicon for the heaters and the heat sinks. We designed a new Pirani gauge with an embedded Wheatstone bridge made by thick-silicon resistors that allows an improvement in resolution and sensitivity. With the optimized Wheatstone bridge structure, the temperature coefficient of the gauges pressure measure decreases from 2.5%/°C to 0.74%/°C, and the resolution was optimized from 0.071 to 0.008 Torr at 1 Torr. In addition, the gauges were packaged into non-hermetic cavities by wafer-level AlGe eutectic bonding to undergo the wafer-dicing process, with sensitivity improved from 1.65 to 17.1 V/Torr at 1 Torr.
ISSN:1057-7157
1941-0158
DOI:10.1109/JMEMS.2017.2680738